


A Couple of Losers

by DesireeArmfeldt



Series: In Out of the Cold [3]
Category: Hard Core Logo (1996), Slings & Arrows
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, POV Third Person Limited, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Reference to Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 04:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15597906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: Geoffrey Tennant and Billy Tallent walk out of a bar...





	A Couple of Losers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally intended as a snippet for [dsc6dsnippets](https://dsc6dsnippets.dreamwidth.org), fished out of the WIP pile years later. Written for the prompt:
> 
> "When I left I had a choice  
> Lose my mind or lose my voice"  
> (John Fullbright, "I'm Going Home")

In retrospect, maybe Geoffrey wasn’t quite as ready to cope with the big bad world of reality as he’d thought.  He’d figured, going to a bar, ordering a drink, keeping his mouth shut and watching a bunch of strangers drink, what could be so hard about that?  And then the lyrics of some stupid American folk song playing in the background drilled into his ear, and then there was glass smashing and yelling and hands on him and maybe some punches got thrown.

 _When I left I had a choice, Lose my mind or lose my voice, lose my mind or lose my voice or lose my mind or. . ._  

And then, he was out in the damp autumn night, leaning against cold bricks, with someone’s hand clenched firmly around his bicep.  It wasn’t dragging him off to a cell, padded or otherwise, though.  It wasn’t dragging him anywhere.  Just holding onto him.

A cigarette presented itself under his nose.  When Geoffrey fumbled it into his mouth, there was a flame, then smoke creeping into his lungs.

“Thanks,” he mumbled to the owner of the hands.

“Fuckin’ folk music, eh?”  The guy was around Geoffrey’s age, skinny, blond, weathered, with the kind of hair and jewelry that went with punk or metal or one of those horrible loud kinds of rock music.

“I can take it or leave it.”

An amused snort.  “That was ambivalence?”

“No, I just. . .the lyrics.  Lose your mind or lose your voice.  Bet it’s obvious which I chose.” 

The rocker lit a cigarette of his own and blew a series of smoke rings.  Geoffrey wished he’d ever been able to master that trick.

“Hell of a choice.  You like being crazy?”

“Not so much, no.  But I don’t think staying both sane and alive was an option for me any more. . .uh, where I was.”

“With him?  Or her?”

Geoffrey swallowed.  “Both.”

The guy blew out another mouthful of smoke. 

“Problem with crazy is, it’s catching.  At least you left, eh?  Didn’t drag anyone down with you.”

“God, I hope not.” 

He’d been careful not to encounter any news of New Burbage.  Didn’t listen to the radio or read the arts sections of the paper or look at any part of the internet that didn’t have to do with food delivery or pictures of cats.  But surely, with him gone, Oliver and Ellen had been, would have been, _were_ making out just fine.  The Festival still existed, Oliver was still at the helm, he knew that much.  If that sky had fallen, someone would have come and shouted at him about it, no matter how much he buried his head in the sand.

The stranger blew another smoke ring at the sky.  “Artists are all crazy, right?  The ones people remember.  Maybe that’s why.  Maybe everyone gets the same fucking choice.”

Geoffrey snorted.  “Ah, the good old myth of madness and creative genius.  All the great artists end up cutting off their ears and mailing them to their lovers.  My _Hamlet_ was a work of unparalleled genius, because I ran screaming out of Ophelia’s grave and ended up in the park, throttling swans.”

Apparently, neither depression nor being in recovery from a recent psychotic break was enough to quell his deeply rooted instinct to argue with people who spouted asinine pseudo-philosophy.  Good to know.

The guy gave him a startled look, then said, “Hey, in my line, people bite the heads off chickens and it’s all pretty much just part of the show.  Maybe you should take up punk.”

He flashed Geoffrey a grin, but it was the kind that made you want to back away from someone slowly and then run before the knives came out.  Geoffrey was seized with a powerful, completely impractical urge to put this guy on stage as Timon of Athens.

“I’m not so good with loud noises these days,” he said, which was actually true.

The guy nodded like that was a fair point.

“I just. . .” he said, and Geoffrey halted with his mouth open to say _Thanks_ and _Goodbye_ , because he might never set foot on stage again but he could still read the beats of a scene just fine, thank you, and they were suddenly on the point of the big confession.

The pause went on so long that if there’d been an audience, they would have starting coughing and rattling their programs nervously.

“I just. . .” the guy said again.  He dropped his cigarette butt, ground it out under his heel.  “I can’t hear it any more.  The music.  Can’t write a damn thing.  All I can hear are his fucking tunes.”

“Maybe you should think about getting out,” Geoffrey suggested cautiously, aware of the irony of him offering life advice to anyone.

The rocker coughed out a bitter laugh.  _Definitely Timon material_ , Geoffrey thought on a rising tide of panic.  He was not emotionally equipped to handle people more messed-up than himself, which it was starting to look like this guy was.

“Oh, I got out.  Before I went as bugfuck as the rest of them.  Him.  But the bastard could never fucking admit when he’d lost.  Not once in his goddamned life.  So he one-upped me.  Got even farther out.  Far as you can get.”  He pointed a finger-gun at Geoffrey and made a silent, molasses-slow pantomime: _kapow!_

“Guess he took the music with him out of spite,” he said.  “Fucked me but good.  Can’t even blow my brains out, ‘cause I’m afraid the fucker’d be waiting for me.”

“ _There’s_ _the respect that makes calamity of so long life,”_ Geoffrey quoted, the instinct too ingrained to quash, even now.  He explained apologetically, “Hamlet was afraid to kill himself, in case whatever comes next is worse.”

“Yeah, Shakespeare, guy knew what he was talking about.  Too bad he didn’t know when to shut up.”  The rocker flashed another grin, this one more bleak than menacing.

Personally, Geoffrey had never used to believe consciousnesses or the soul or whatever you wanted to call it endured past death, but going mad seemed to have broadened his horizons, as well as giving him dreams he was willing to bet were worse than anything the undiscovered country could offer.

At least none of his own ghosts were literally dead.

“Look, I got to go.  Places to be, people to screw.  You might want to go home, get some rest.  Assuming you aren’t actually looking to get the shit kicked out of you.  Which, you know.  Sometimes that’s cathartic.”

“Yeah, no, not really my plan.  Listen, thanks.  And—”  He’s not sure what else he can meaningfully offer, but the guy cuts him off in any case.

“No sweat.  Go on, piss off.  But listen, if I were you?  I’d think about killing a few more swans.  Just in case.”

He stalks off into the night, leaving Geoffrey shaking his head.  He’s pretty sure the mad creative genius thing is still bullshit, and he has no desire to slide back into insanity now that he’s spent so much blood, sweat and tears clawing his way out.  But he also has no desire to live out his life as a Shakespeare-amputee.  Theatre is too deeply embedded in his psyche; the texts are too deeply embedded.  Cut them out, you might as well lobotomize him and have done with it.

No, acts of misdirected brutality against ornamental fauna are not the answer.  However, a warehouse with cheap rent, a few starving actors, a stage manager, a couple of black boxes, and some folding chairs. . .Maybe not _Timon of Athens_ or even (more plausibly and remuneratively) _Lear_ , not right away.  Start with the comedies.  Guerilla theatre is a mad enough plan all by itself.

Maybe he’ll even see if he can track down the nameless musician with the broken-glass smile and ask him if he’d consider a career change.  The theatre’s as good a place as any to find your voice.


End file.
